Alex is a new manager of a company who is tasked to improve the efficiency of a few part-timers in the marketing department. These part-timers seem to be having a fun time and are not being serious at work, so Alex called for an urgent meeting to address this problem. When Alex met the part-timers, he didn’t even introduce himself but rather started questioning them in a harsh tone.
“Why are you guys skiving at work?!” said Alex harshly. There was a long period of silence after what he said as the part-timers had no idea how to react. After a while, Alex got impatient and started reprimanding them again.
“Are you all deaf? You all are worse than primary school kids! At least they know how to respond.“ He ranted furiously. Finally one of the part-timers named John couldn’t take the insults and started to rebuke Alex.
“It’s not true that we are skiving at work! The managers didn’t even assign any work for us to do. You have to blame the incompetence of the managers and if you continue insulting us, we will all quit this job!” John uttered. The rest of the part-timers then nodded in agreement.
Alex was really shocked and embarrassed. He reacted by postponing the meeting to the following day and walked out of the meeting room shamefully.
The main problem in this situation is that the part-timers are not efficient enough. However, I believe Alex over-reacted without getting his facts right and he should have built the right rapport with the part-timers first. I think Alex was too anxious to solve the problem and he should have exercised active listening instead of insulting the part-timers. Thus instead of focusing on a solution to the problem, Alex affixed the blame on the part-timers causing them to become defensive and start threatening to leave their job. However, John should have replied Alex in a more respectful way rather than threatening him.
I believe Alex could have better resolved the issue by using a win-win strategy. He should have first define the problem, try to hear what the part-timers have to say and empathise with them. Secondly, they should brainstorm for possible solutions and carefully weigh the costs and rewards that each solution entails. Next they can test out the solution mentally by evaluating it. In this case, the conflict could have been avoided.
How do you think Alex should have reacted to solve the problem?
